When it comes to romance and independence, can you have your cake and eat it, too?
That’s the question posed by a new romantic comedy called Cake, which opens in theatres across Canada on Friday. It’s Canadian in that it was written, produced and directed by homegrown talent, although two bankable American stars – Heather Graham and Taye Diggs – have been cast in the leads.
Graham plays Pippa McGee, a free-spirited travel writer who revels in being single and steers clear of anything that smacks of love or commitment. In other words, her character would normally be a man’s role.
We are introduced to her skydiving with a male companion, then leaving him, jumping on a plane and flying home, just making it in time to be bridesmaid at another gal pal’s wedding.
The intent is to make it clear she’s bohemian and free, free, free. But the effect suggests she’s on a manic high and perhaps she should at least consider decaf.
But no sooner is Pippa painted as the new woman – devoid of entanglements and offended by anything that smacks of tradition – than the storyline veers riskily into something else.
Back home, Pippa is brought down to earth by her estranged publisher father’s sudden illness. She makes a hasty bedside promise to him to help out in any way she can. So he asks her to edit one of his magazines. Fine, which one?
Wedding Bells, it turns out. A bridal mag! In other words, just about everything that is the polar opposite to what she stands for.
But she tackles the assignment with determination and in the process meets two handsome but very different guys. Ian (David Sutcliffe) is her dad’s button-down right-hand man, who has been asked to guide her through her early days on the job. The other hunky fashion photographer Hemingway (Diggs), who thinks like she does. They both agree that a multiple orgasm is preferable to a wedding ring any day.
Her first issue of Wedding Bells is a major disaster as she tries to imprint her feminist viewpoints on it. (Does a story on bride burning in India really fit in these pages?) Then she begins to have second thoughts about her relationship with Ian, even if they are oil and water.
Under Nisha Ganatra’s direction and Tassie Cameron’s writing, the plot begins to hint that Pippa may have been wrong on several lifestyle counts – namely freedom bad, settling down good. Which may give sudden pause to Pippa’s fans in the audience.
It’s not that wedding bells ring by any means, but one begins to wonder just what the filmmakers are trying to say about modern women and what their ideals should be.
To their credit, though, the implication of the title must be remembered: that enjoying one’s independence and having some relationship security are not necessarily mutually exclusive. And one shouldn’t be that afraid to give love a try.
That said, it’s so refreshing to see a Canadian film unafraid to show off its Canadian-ness. It is shot in Toronto, takes place in Toronto, there are references to Niagara Falls, Kingston, suburban Scarborough and one scene is even set at the family cottage in Algonquin Park.
Graham is backed by a solid homegrown cast, too, including Bruce Gray (Traders) as her father and Ottawa native Sandra Oh (Sideways) and Vancouverite Sarah Chalke (the second Becky on Roseanne) as her girlfriends. Also Saskatoon native Sutcliffe who was seen briefly a couple of years back as the everyman husband of Teri Polo’s movie star character in the short-lived American sitcom I’m With Her. More recently he’s had a regular role on The Gilmore Girls.
Despite its big-screen ambitions, though, in the United States, Cake is destined to become a movie-of-the-week some time next year.
Source: Canadian Press